


Observations on the Ambulatory Habits of Pegasus Infants

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:26:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon





	Observations on the Ambulatory Habits of Pegasus Infants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



"You are a good friend, Rodney," Teyla said as she stuffed her bantos rods into the loose, embroidered duffel she used for toting belongings between her quarters and the gym. "I tried to reschedule this training, but Lieutenant Boshon was – "

"Pfffft," Rodney offered, waving away her objections and lowering himself onto the rug at the foot of her bed. His knees creaked, but he managed to sit cross-legged with a minimum of discomfort – important, since Torren was watching his every move with great interest, and it was paramount that he not disgrace himself in front of a nine-month-old possessed of very springy ligaments and annoyingly good posture.

"I will be no more than two hours," Teyla said, cinching her bag. "Or I would be happy to meet you both in the mess if you prefer?"

"Radio us," Rodney said, positioning his laptop and scanner out of reach of Torren's hands. "Who knows what we'll be up to by then." He stared into middle distance. "Maybe naps."

Teyla snorted softly. "Such optimism. If you can arrange such a feat I will be deeply impressed."

"Oh, for me, not him," Rodney said, snapping back to attention. "I mean, you just have that one rule, right? Don't set anything on fire. So I figure . . . "

"Goodbye, Rodney," Teyla said, shaking her head and leaving the room, waving her fingers at her son as she left.

Rodney waited for the door to close behind her then looked at Torren. "So," he said, cheerfully clapping his hands, making Torren's eyes go wide. "Today's task is _walking_."

Torren chewed on a block and babbled something that could only be, in Rodney's estimation, agreement.

It took a little while for Rodney to be fully ready to deliver his lesson on the principles of ambulatory conduct – while he'd taken time to prepare his schematics in advance, there was the question of opening all the requisite programs, adjusting sound levels, and sequencing each piece of data for optimum digestion by an infant brain. Torren, patient as his mother, if smelling rather different, seemed happy to wait, bashing blocks together in a fashion that Rodney couldn't help but take as evidence of Sheppard's babysitting techniques, and Rodney was conscientious about offering small sounds of encouragement whenever Torren squealed or laughed or once, memorably, belched like a _naffik_-beast from P76-247. Thinking ahead – energy expenditure; metabolism; the empirically proven mood-altering effects of food – Rodney also made sure they had snacks before they began (a half sandwich for him, and something cracker-like and vaguely cheese-smelling for Torren).

"Walking!" Rodney said at last, waving a finger.

Torren reciprocated by flailing both hands in the air – a very smart child, Rodney observed, with keen motor skills.

"You are," Rodney said, hitting a key on his laptop and pulling up a chart showing how much Torren had grown since birth, "nine months old. Where once you were floppy – " a slide popped up of Torren nestled comfortably inside the span of Ronon's palm – "you now have a much stronger spine, and I am reliably informed that you have been working on the muscle tone in your legs for quite some time." Up popped a video of John changing Torren's diaper, Torren's legs kicking wildly, John offering his palms like a boxer's mark and making soft noises of 'bam, bam, bam!' every time Torren made contact.

Torren giggled wildly and let out a small but deadly-smelling fart.

"Quite," Rodney said, and cleared his throat. "Walking is not merely developmentally appropriate to children of your age in my galaxy and yours," – up popped an annotated bibliography of key medical and cultural texts – "but enables you to do things that are a great deal more fun than sitting in your own . . . uh . . . as we say, excrement."

"Aiiiiia," Torren said, and tipped forward onto his hands, intent on crawling toward the laptop.

"Yes, yes, there are more slides, how about we let Uncle Rodney work the technology, hmm?" Rodney batted Torren's hands away from his trackpad. "No, no – we watch, we don't touch."

Torren grizzled menacingly.

"And perhaps now is a good time to begin the practical portion of the lesson," Rodney said hurriedly. "Here, fingers!"

It was a matter of some puzzlement to Rodney that Torren had, from his earliest moments of life outside the womb, shown a tremendous proclivity for grabbing hold of adult fingers with something akin to a death grip. The fact that all children did this – as all too many people were happy to inform him – did nothing to ease his confusion. Exactly what evolutionary purpose did it serve to instinctively grab onto what had to look, to an infant's eyes, like a very large sausage? Unless of course it was because sausages were delicious, and all children were born with an instinctive knowledge of this fact, in which case . . . but regardless, _now_, at least, the grab-hold mechanism was useful, distracting Torren from the glories of Rodney's laptop and allowing Rodney to gently ease him up onto his feet. "Standing!" Rodney said. "Excellent start!"

Torren grinned at him gummily, drooling a little down his cotton shift as he waggled foot to foot.

"Balance!" Rodney said in his most encouraging voice. "You're finding your balance, or, perhaps, dancing, but it's probably best we walk before we dance, or – well. I should maybe have investigated if dancing is more culturally appropriate as a developmental milestone on Athos, um . . . well, let's waggle a while, shall we? Just to cover all our bases." Rodney shook his shoulders in what he hoped was a rhythmic fashion.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeee," Torren cried happily, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Oh, yes, use of knee joints, very good," Rodney offered, hunching a little and straightening his spine to do what he could in the way of bouncing while he sat. "Now, if I could just let go of one of your hands for just a moment . . . " There was a small tussle. "This slide, you'll see, shows how your skeletal system will move as you walk, and is perhaps useful to keep in mind, a means of mapping experience onto the theoretical, as it were . . . "

Torren squealed at the tiny animated hominid on Rodney's screen, opening and closing the fingers of his free hand before stepping toward the laptop, losing his balance, and sitting hard on his butt. He looked up at Rodney in surprise.

"THAT WAS A STEP!" Rodney said, arms above his head, looking around for someone to share the moment. "That was – oh, you are talented and good looking and not entirely made of fluid, despite some comments I may once have made about you, but in truth, I was provoked, you vomited on me and – anyway, A STEP."

Torren blinked and made a grabby hand at the screen again.

"Would you like to try again? I think you would! Because of your surpassing intelligence! Okay!" Rodney offered his fingers and hauled Torren back to his feet. "Operation Walk That Baby is a go!"

\-----

It was with some confusion that Rodney woke up when Teyla came home, mostly because he didn't remember falling asleep. His jacket was across the room, his shirt stained with drool, and his spine was protesting his recumbent position on the floor. Torren was sacked out on his chest, huffing contentedly into his t-shirt, and from somewhere the tiny strains of Aerosmith's _Walk this Way_ seemed to be on repeat.

Teyla crouched down gracefully beside him. "You managed to get my son to nap," she whispered, grazing the curve of Torren's down-covered head with one finger. "Miracle of miracles."

"S'nothing," Rodney said. "We were – there was . . . " He yawned. "Laptop."

Teyla reached to pull his laptop toward her, mercifully killing the music as she tapped on keys. Rodney vaguely heard John saying 'bam, bam, bam!' and watched Teyla's face as she paged through his charts, his diagrams, his bibliography, his later work on posture and the spinal defects it was most important to avoid. "You," she said at last, setting the laptop down, "have been very busy."

"He doesn't quite have it yet," Rodney said, "but don't worry, that's perfectly normal, he's still a very advanced child even if his steps are, uh, uniquely expressed. So long as he holds on to me or the bed he does exceptionally, and he's wonderfully confident with just one hand for balance, I imagine he'll be running in oh, a week, maybe two?"

Teyla shushed him and bent to kiss his forehead. "As I said before, you are a good friend," she murmured, curling up beside him, pillowing her head on her bent arm.

"Oh." Rodney felt his cheeks heat a little. "Well. Thank you." He cleared his throat. "Training go well?"

"Very well," Teyla said. "I left only the usual number of bruises."

"I think your son left the same number on me," Rodney offered ruefully. "His coordination is . . . sporadic."

Teyla laughed softly. "Perhaps next time you could work on his color recognition, or perhaps teach him something of earth music. I would value his ear to be trained in the art of other times and places, and I suspect it would require rather less effort from both of you."

"Hmmm," Rodney said thoughtfully. "Beethoven. Maybe some Chopin – oh, oh, a lovely . . ." He left off the thought, caught unawares by a yawn again.

"Next time," Teyla said, smiling.

"Hmmm," he agreed, smiling just a little. "I helped."

Teyla paused in a humming of _Walk This Way_. "You did," she said graciously, beaming at him with a warmth that Rodney didn't wholly understand – he had, perhaps, done something amusing, but she was also very fond of him, he thought. He closed his eyes and surrendered to the pleasant lull of having achieved something other people couldn't.

"Helped," he crowed softly.

Teyla hummed beside him, an aid to his restful, well-deserved sleep.


End file.
